Elizabethanne Spiotta

making love in middletown

the yellow paint on your bedroom walls
is the opening act for the sunlight.
the light breaks your heart every day
and you are soo open to loving.

you carried the willow stump, collected with moss
across the hay field to me
and placed it on the deck, a beloved specimen.
we pulled and plucked our boots off-
now to study each other.

i buried my head alongside you
between you and your familiar robe
while you read Eliot and we found
our selves in England,
healing for the rest of our lives.

each one of those tuesdays when we left each other
not knowing if we would have another,
it was like we were practicing dying.
we used every bit of what belonged to yesterday.


d and smoked fish.

he brings smoked fish
wedges of cheese that melt-
oh, the heat from
our bodies.
jugs of kombucha
pickled sardines.
           he is proud of himself
           he is courting me
           he is, maybe? nervous.
i circle the kitchen table
we circle the kitchen table.
tear the bread
push the cheese into the opportunities
of the baguette
nudge the head off the kippered trout
           shall we go upstairs, he asks
           letting me pretend to arrive at
           a different conclusion, a different response
           as if there was any answer other
           than a breathy, bursting ‘yes’.


*

And then there are the wild geese, Mary.
whose moving stitches across the sky suture me inside
something
reminding me that whether I go or stay,
i am not without my own migration.

And then there is this mulch pile, given freely from the town
full of sleeping snakes and baby mice.
i stab into it- the only way to get a satisfying bite
and turn it over into the barrow.

the raspberry brambles and their red thorns
have thrust themselves into the ground
and argue with my efforts to do my good work.

And then, this cool and creamy breeze
thickens the space around me,
the sweat and chill I create
under my tired coat
leaves no room for questions.

the barrow fills and then I dump it
again
and again
onto the berries
the burning bushes
the muddy patches by the shower
creating my own stitches across the yard.


About the Author

Elizabethanne Spiotta is a poet mother widow chaplain who often wonders if she is will ever get her head out of the clouds. She is living the good life on the water in the country of upstate NY.

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